The Installer Show Gets It. Do You?
Retrofit suppliers are still stuck marketing in vertical mode.
We sell solar. We sell heat pumps. We sell controls.
But consumers buy horizontally.
And I don’t mean lying down.
Homeowners are no longer making isolated technology decisions. They are making interconnected ones. At the same time.
Watch time across the content we produce and distribute is climbing sharply because consumers are becoming more energy literate. More technically curious. More sceptical too.
They are no longer simply asking:
“Should I buy solar?”
They are asking:
- will this work with a battery?
- will it suit my tariff?
- can my roof take it?
- what happens in winter?
- does this integrate with a heat pump?
- will I need an electrical upgrade?
- does the app actually work?
- can I trust the installer?
- and perhaps most importantly:
can I trust this technology to still work in ten years?
Specification alone is no longer enough.
Consumers increasingly want operational proof.
They want to see systems working in real homes, with real constraints, real compromises and real people using them.
They want to judge:
- noise
- aesthetics
- usability
- disruption
- reliability
- complexity
- and trust.
Nick Visitor | JJ Roofing Supplies
Which is why InstallerSHOW at the NEC has suddenly become one of the most interesting reflections of where the industry is heading.
Walk the halls this year and you will immediately see the companies likely to thrive in the next phase of retrofit.
Not necessarily the firms shouting loudest.
The firms understanding convergence.
Because marketing yourself as a single silver bullet is becoming increasingly difficult when every part of the home is now connected to every other decision.
My solar choices affect my heating strategy → batteries affect tariff behaviour → EV charging affects electrical upgrades → ventilation affects insulation strategy → controls affect usability → software affects trust → installers affect everything.
The homeowner experiences this as one system.
The industry still largely markets it as separate silos.
InstallerSHOW itself increasingly reveals the contradiction.